


Rededication

by lodessa



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Love Confessions, Miracles, chanukah retelling, questioning faith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: At the end of the Maccabean revolt, Jorah returns to find Daenerys in the desecrated Temple.  (Chanukah Retelling/AU)
Relationships: Jorah Mormont/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 20
Kudos: 39
Collections: A song of frosted bear kisses and dragon roasted chestnuts





	Rededication

**Author's Note:**

> Okay all. We still have a couple more hours of Chanukah left (in my timezone) and I've decided to post this rather than deleting it our letting it sit for a year. (Please note that this was finished while sick/feverish.) 
> 
> Everyone else was doing Christmas fics in the fandom and I should have probably just done something with a made up Westeros/Essos holiday but the more antisemitic the world becomes the more loudly I feel like I need to be jewish so here goes:
> 
> Dany is associated with Fire and Miracles, and Jorah has the same initials as Judah Maccabee so I figured why not.

Jorah hesitates in the doorway, glancing down. He’s covered with dust and blood and sweat from the battle, to say nothing of the way hiding in the hills for months or years on end has driven the grime deep into his being. He’s filthy, definitely in no state to step foot into the Temple. But then he shrugs and steps inside anyway. He’s never been a particularly devout man, committed yes but not devout. 

It turns out he need not have worried. The furniture is upturned, the lamps smashed on the floor. If the God of his fathers didn’t strike down the occupiers when they did this, surely He will not care about some dirty footprints. Jorah knows the rebuttal others might offer: That is is the Lord their God who has made them instruments of his will in driving the invaders from their lands. Mighty convenient, he thinks, that theory. It just as easily allows anyone to claim any event for the glory of whatever gods they follow.

Right now he is more concerned with following the silver hair he can see glistening ahead, even as his eyes are still adjusting to the dimness. Again, he thinks he should probably turn back. What right does he have to follow her here, and what can he possibly say to her? He doesn’t know and yet he knows that he must persist nonetheless. He cannot stand to let her hear it from someone else, if she has not already.

“Daenerys,” he calls out when he is only a few feet from her.

She looks up, her beautiful pale face seeming to glow with an almost otherworldly light, and he can see how the softness of lingering childhood has left her, replaced with a harder beauty.

“Jorah?” she says, brows furrowing in uncertainty. “Is it truly you?”

“It is,” he bows his head slightly, “I promised you I would not return until I cleansed our home of our oppressors.”

“And I told you not to go,” she replies and for a moment he thinks it is a reproach but then she flings herself towards him, “Oh how I’ve missed you my Bear.”

For a moment he can say nothing, as he marvels at her feeling of her slight frame against his larger one, breathing in her clean perfumed hair, realizing just how much the shape of her has changed since last he saw her with the widening of her hips and the swelling of her breasts.

“I’m filthy…” he finally protests halfheartedly.

“You’re alive,” she replies, holding him closer.

Her words bring him back to reality, remind him of what he has to tell her.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” he finally sighs.

“Yes?” she asks, pulling away to look at his face.

“It’s about Drogo.”

“I know he’s dead,” she stares into his eyes bravely. “His men wouldn’t dare retreat if he still lived.”

Drogo. Jorah might have endured the occupation. He’s never been a religious man and the Seleucids are strong fighters. He could have respected that. He never would have joined his kin in the hills, if it had not been for Drogo and his decision to take Daenerys as a wife.

Daenerys: the jewel of Jerusalem, descended from kings. A fine prize for an outsider ruling over their people. She is more than that to Jorah though, though. When her brother, last of her kinsmen, had been killed, Jorah had promised he would protect Daenerys. How could he protect her from her own husband though? How, save in the way he now has, a way she told him not to try.

“They’ll be coming for me soon,” she tells him and he knows what she means without further specification. The widow of a Seleucid general is the property of the Empire as far as they are concerned.

“I won’t let them take you,” he promises her. “I may have failed in other promises to you, but this one I will not.”

“You’ve never failed me,” she tells him and it feels all at once like being bathed in sunlight and having a knife twisted into his gut at the same time. “Not when it truly mattered. Your devotion to me has been more steadfast than ours to our Lord God. ”

With those words she twists her gaze back through the general wreckage to where the central lamp should illuminate the Temple. Slipping away from him she moves to move it upright from where it has been knocked over and he follows to help her, seeing how the oil within all has spilled on the floor.

“I looked everywhere for oil but the troops must have taken it all with them,” she tells him mournfully, “This light should never have gone out and now we cannot even renew it. It will take over a week for even the fastest riders to get more.”

He wonders if she knows it was him and that is why she has changed the subject from Drogo’s death to the desecration of the Temple. 

“Daenerys,” he tells her, putting his hands on her shoulders and turning her away from the empty lantern, “Let the levites worry about the Temple.”

Even as he says it, he knows it is not her nature, remembers the sense of responsibility she has always felt, the daughter of a dead King whose kingdom had fallen.

_I can change him, Jorah,_ she’d insisted about Drogo, even after what had happened to her foolish brother. _My influence can make things better for our people under his rule. He just doesn’t know anything other than the ways of his people._

She had said it with so much conviction, that Jorah had almost wanted it to be true, wanted to believe that their God had set Daenerys on this task to soften the heart of Drogo. Perhaps it was for the best, at least, that if she was to be subjected to Drogo she believe it have a purpose, even if Jorah could not. Still, lying on the hard floor of caves he had closed his eyes and seen Drogo’s rough hands on her fragile form and the only thought that sated the frustration of that was that of plunging his sword through the man.

And now he had, through sheer luck as much as anything. ( _Perhaps you were meant to slay him_ , he can imagine more religious men saying, _the Lord strengthened your arm to cut him down_. Pretty words for an ugly act.

“I was the one who killed your husband,” he tells her solemnly, knowing that Daenerys had embraced her role as Drogo’s wife, knowing it may cost him her trust and openness.

“He died a good death then,” she says, but she glances away from him back towards where the central lamp should illuminate the temple. 

“My life is yours,” he tells her, dropping to the ground and drawing his sword to present it to her with the hilt faced in her direction and the blade towards his own heart.

“Then live for me,” she demands, casting her eyes down to him, and turning the blade away, before sending it clattering to the ground. “I do not want your death, my devoted bear. Before you defied me and took to the hills I forbid your death and I do still.”

She reaches down and takes his head in her hands, before dropping to her knees to bring her face closer to his.

“Tell me the truth,” she whispers, “Why did you take to the hills, so long after the rest of your kin?”

“It was the only thing I could do,” he replies, “It was the only way I thought I could keep from making a scene in your household.”

“Why?” she demands, “Why could you not keep the peace?” 

Her violet eyes are full of hope and fear and he cannot resist their command.

“You must know,” he swallows, “You must know I have loved you.”

“Why?” she asks, “Because I am the daughter of kings? Because I was forbidden?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “I have cared not for God or Law. Only you stir something greater within me.”

For once she has no reply, and he thinks perhaps he has pushed his luck too far, but then she draws his face closer to hers and brushes her fingertips across his bottom lip and he cannot think anymore as he wraps both hands around her small waist and pulls her against him and their mouths come crashing into one another.

He has imagined kissing her more often than he can keep track of, but never like this, in the Temple, on their knees, in the dark. It does not matter, nothing matters but Daenerys and the way she does not pull away from their embrace, but only eventually breathless presses her forehead to his as their mouths at last part for air.

“Never leave me again,” she tells him, more order than entreaty, drawing her head back just far enough to catch his eyes with her own.

For a moment he thinks he must surely be dreaming, as she seems to glow, a point of brightness radiating in the darkness of the temple. The silver of her hair shines and sparkles in a crown of warm light surrounding her face. It is nothing like what the priests describe, beauty too terrible to look at, but somehow Jorah feels that this must be what it would be like, receiving a messenger from God.

_I’ll go back,_ he promises inwardly, to himself or he knows not who, _I should never have left her. When I wake I will go back and try to make it right._

“I swear it,” he promises aloud, begging inwardly for this dream not to slip from him just yet.

She rises to her feet, drawing him up with her and the change in angle makes him realize why she had suddenly been illuminated, something more than an illusion or a phantasm of sleep. The lamp, which they had both seen extinguished and empty of fuel, is burning brightly, casting strange shadows.

“A miracle,” Daenerys says as she follows his gaze, turning around to see the sight. 

It is, he supposes, though he knows not how or why. He digs his nails into his own skin to once again see if this is a dream, but he does not wake. Perhaps, perhaps if Daenerys can forgive him, can embrace him, there truly is something out there beyond what he can see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears.

“You are a miracle,” he says without thinking.

“Don’t turn me into an idol,” she warns him. “I am just a woman.”

“You are special, Daenerys; you always have been.”

“You have always made me feel special, Jorah,” she tells him, “even when others saw me as worthless.”

“You could never be worthless,” he assures her. “I have never been the most devout of men, but you make it possible for me to feel there might be some truth to the tales of our fathers. I believe in you, and if you tell me that God sent us a miracle today in the lighting of the Temple when all hope was lost, I will believe you know better than I.”

It is the truth. Lies have never come easy to Jorah, no more than faith, but surely Daenerys is no fool and there is no question that the light had to come from somewhere and it had not come from anything he could explain.

“We performed His miracle today,” Daenerys tells him, “You and I. It was when we embraced that the fire ignited.”

He takes that as an invitation, drawing her to him again and kissing her more slowly now, running his hands over the curves of her body, only too late realizing that he is leaving behind a trail of grime on her clothing.

“I’m in no fit state to touch you,” he apologizes, “And yet I cannot resist.”

“Come,” she says, raising his large dirty hands up in her own small ones, “Let us go home and wash the past from you.”

“Home?” he questions, though a voice inside of him screams at him to be quiet and simply follow his good fortune.

“My home, our home if you would have it so,” Daenerys flushes, seeming unsure for the first time since he found her earlier.

“With all my heart, Daenerys, I could wish nothing more.”

She guides him out of the Temple, the light still shining bright through the doorway as they exit, and through the city streets, though he could not have said the route later, as transfixed by her as he is. 

He starts to object when she sends the servants away after they fetch the water and cloths and settles herself in front of him with a clear intention of washing him herself but she ignores him.

“Let me take care of you now, as you have always taken care of me,” she tells him, starting by removing his sandals.

He relents in the face of her obvious determination, letting her slowly and methodically, wipe all the grime away from him bit by bit, furrowing her brows when she comes across scars or fresher cuts from the recent battle. It seems to take an age, and he longs to reach out and pull her into his arms, but Jorah reminds himself to be patient, to submit himself to her will as he has promised to himself.

It is difficult, as she removes his tunic and then works her way from from his shoulders, moving his legs apart as she seats herself between them and continues to wring out and resume washing his thighs and then just above his groin.

He watches her swallow, before finally turning her attention to his ready manhood, gently but firmly completing her task in a way that feels more erotic than anything his former wives had ever done. 

She drops the cloth in the basin of water at last, and stands in front of him. She looks directly in his eyes as she disrobes, letting her clothing falls carelessly to the ground as she reveals herself to him. Her body his young and full and beautiful, but it is all the more so because it is hers.

Putting her hands on his waist, she walks him backwards until he runs right into the bed, pushing him down lightly in a way he’s eager to obey, seating himself just in time for her to straddle his lap as she moves on hand to his face and the other between them to help guide him home.

“I am yours,” she groans as she lowers herself down into him in one fluid movement, “And you are mine.”

“You are mine and I am yours,” he repeats back to her, as he thrusts up into her, hands coming to hold her hips as hers grip his shoulders. 

It is not a long encounter, not after so long alone, not after so long wishing hopelessly. Fortunately, Daenerys appears just as eager, for she squeezes tightly around him and cries out to pleasure as he feels the first rush of his seed shoot forth into her.

For a long while, they lay there, Daenerys collapsed against his chest as he softens inside of her. 

“It was only when you were gone that I understood at last my true feelings,” Daenerys tells him, propping herself up on her elbows so she can look him in the eyes. 

“I didn’t dare hope,” he tells her, “No matter what I might have wished.”

Moving his hands to cover her back, he flips them over so that she is lying on her back and begins to kiss his way down from her forehead to her lips to her throat and still further. She giggles as his beard brushes one of her inner arms, but it changes to a moan as he reaches his destination, ready to redeem himself as a bridegroom with his lips and tongue, until such a time as the rest of him recovers.

He finds her reactive indeed, and perhaps he ought to be worried about the whole town hearing her calling out his name so loudly, but he is not, not as she bucks against his face and at the same time grips his hair in her hands, holding him to her.

It is a full eight days before they finally emerge from the bedchamber, to the news that the supply wagons have just arrived, of the way that the lamp in the Temple has been mysteriously burning without oil since the day they retook the city.

Daenerys and Jorah exchange glances at that, a small secret smile neither of them can hide. _Okay, God,_ he shrugs inwardly, _If you are really out there, I guess I owe you an apology, or a thank you. Something. Because if you are responsible for this miracle (the one with me and her, not the oil business mind you), you really are my Lord after all._

It never hurts to cover all of one’s bases, he decides, wondering how long it will be before he and Daenerys can slip away privately again.


End file.
